Korea Travelogue: Day 4 Jeonju Hanok Village
Started our one and only fully day in Jeonju with.... an endless downpour WTF. It was such a downer for us because we were planning on renting hanboks to wear around the Hanok Village but the rain didn't want to stop so there was no chance for us to drag the hanboks on the wet floor la then we had to scrape the idea T___T Ok but first of, breakfast! :D #foodisalwaysimpt
Made use of the empty cafe to take some pictures xD #eyelinerisonpoint And yes we were all in sweaters because it was so darn cold that entire day.
Headed off for Nambu Market for the famous bean sprout rice soup at a tiny store called 현대옥 (pronounced as 'hyun dae ok')- it was in such an obscure corner of the market that we kept turning in circles trying to locate it lol!
The bean sprout rice bowl or 콩나물국밥 as it is known locally was so good! The soup was very flavourful and the tau geh had no smell so it wasn't overpowering like our local tau geh. Perfect for the cold weather that we had that day so maybe that made it extra yummy. The owner was so surprised to see us there because this store is only known to the Koreans and they hardly got any tourists/foreigners coming to their store. He asked how we came to know about their store and I told them we found them through the internet LOL!
Oh and for the egg that comes with the rice soup, the local way to consume it is to pour the rice soup's broth into the egg and mix it. Then just eat it down :D
The ahjumma saw us not touching the egg because we were too focused on the soup so she did the mixing for us hahaha! That was really a very unique way of eating the egg though.
After that we left Nambu Market to walk back to the Hanok Village - by the way if you want to bring home some crockery or cutlery you can get them at Nambu Market because it is a very traditional Korean market selling everything you need for your house! - to get to Jeondong Catholic Cathedral.
Typically the streets will be filled with people dressed in hanboks but due to the rain it was literally a ghost town that day in the village.
Jeonju Moju which I mentioned in my previous entry - still don't understand why anyone would drink this lol! Maybe for the elders because the smell is so hard to stomach wtf.
PNB Bakery is also another stop we wanted to go to because they are famous for their choco pies!! :D
We bought 1 chocolate flavoured and 1 white chocolate flavoured to share among us 3 because it did get very jelat after awhile. The choco pies we had were so much different from the supermarket bought ones as the pies were more cake-like and not as airy which I really liked. I preferred the normal chocolate flavour because it was not as sweet as the white chocolate version. Picked up a box of 10 choco pies to lug back to Seoul for our friend Hyunju as well which she totally loved when we gave it to her!
Passed by one of the places that offered hanboks for rental then got reminded of how the stupid rain spoilt all our plans.
We originally wanted to go to a place called Malsooni (rental is KRW5000 for 1.5hrs 전라북도 전주시 완산구 은행로 74-13) and walk around Gyeonggijeon Shrine (경기전) to take nice pictures so if you plan on renting a hanbok you can consider doing it in this manner. Skipped the shrine because we were cheapos and we were not keen without the hanboks LOL!
The Etude House outlet actually offers a 10% discount if you walk into their store and purchase things in a hanbok. I was totally scammed into it because I checked with the lady and she said ok even though I was in my usual clothes but in the end I didn't get the discount nor tax refund because that outlet was not registered with the tax refund company. SIANNNNNNNNN.
After that we went around searching for the yummy street food such as:
Pan fried cheese (this is available everywhere!) - comes with yoghurt as an accompanying sauce
Gilgoria Baguette - baguette filled with a ton of ingredients that taste like pizza lol
Hotteok - this is a must try! The store we went to is this particular one below
Got super lazy after that cos y'know food coma LOL and then I wanted to change shoes as the rain was soaking it like mad so we went back to Becky's for a short pit stop. Redeemed our complimentary drink coupons and stayed for awhile before we set off once more for.... LUNCH O.O
Lunch menu was to hunt down the most authentic Jeonju bibimbap restaurant that our friend recommended called 가족회관. It is located near the street that we visited the night before and the restaurant is on the second floor!
Address
Jungang-dong 3-ga 80, Wansan-gu, Jeonju-si, Jeollabuk-do, South Korea
Amazing amount of banchans or side dishes and that steamed egg was to die for!
We ordered 2 bibimbaps to share because we were still pretty full from all the street food. Taste wise I thought the bibimbap was not mind blowing and fairly nice although if I'm running low on spare time I would just skip this and devour all the yummy street food instead! I think those were much more unique and cannot be easily found in Seoul.
Persistent rain T____T
Moving on we ventured further from the hanok village and towards the southern part to head for the Confucius school.
Ah-sum part 2 HAHAHAH! I was super lazy to take my camera out because we only had 2 umbrellas to share among 3 of us so I designated myself as the umbrella holder while the bff took all the pictures :D
Jeonju Hyanggyo is actually a filming location for 2010's Sungkyunkwan Scandal and we were very excited to visit there because Joongki oppa was hereeeeeeeeeee (cheap thrill)
According to internet sources, their school and dormitory scenes were all filmed on-site at this particular location. The big tree you see in the main courtyard was the one Yoo Ah In climbed in the drama.
Spent about 20 minutes exploring the school and then we left to walk towards Imokdae and Omokdae which is a viewing platform for you to see the entire Hanok Village.
From Omokdae/Imokdae you can cross the overhead bridge that leads to the Jaman Mural Village/Wall Painting Village. This is a really nice mural village and the murals are more well known than the ones in Gamcheon, Busan.
Went for a short drink break because all that walking was killing our feet! And of course it was very empty in the mural village no thanks to the rain so we were pretty much the only customers in that cafe and since lighting was so good... camwhore we did :D
I actually went to the salon to dye my hair before this trip but the colour only really showed up clearly in these pictures due to the lighting lol.
Teehee xD
Don't kill me :D
Found a Spirited Away mural and they went crazyyyyyyy!
My childhood favourite Ghibli show - Howl's Moving Castle :D :D :D
Totoro!! :D Super cute Ghibli walls~
Kungfu Panda for you?
And that concluded the entire exploration of Jeonju Hanok Village. We trekked back to Becky's for a rest before heading out for dinner a couple of hours later because there wasn't much to see with the rain pouring heavily still. Dinner was at a lovely kalguksu restaurant called 베테랑/Veteran
Address
전라북도 전주시 완산구 교동 84-10
This bowl of kalguksu was one of the best meals we had the entire trip! I think it tied with the BBQ chicken we had at our dance instructor's parents restaurant in Gwangju the next day but seriously everyone, you have to go to this place when in Jeonju!
Broth was so delish that I actually finished half the bowl - I typically do not like to drink that much soup because of how MSG laden some can be but this was superb! Noodles were also the right texture and the weather could have added to how warm it filled our tummies because we each ordered 1 bowl each and they were all clean at the end of the meal.
Alright so that concludes our trip to Jeonju. I highly recommend that if you have spare time to travel out of Seoul and head to this Hanok Village either for a day trip or 2D1N trip because it is so worth it both attraction-wise and food-wise. Anyway, we were moving on to Gwangju the next day so I'll cover our 2 day stay in Gwangju in the upcoming entries.
Till then, bye! ^^